Rich Greenberg wrote:
> On: Mon, May 31, 2004 at 12:09:18PM -0400,Wehner, Paul (wehnerpl) Wrote:
>
> }  A medical student sent a email to the dean of financial affairs trying to
> } explain in painfull detail that his father's income should not be included
> } in evaluating his aid package since the father had refused all contact and
> } support for him or his mother. Unfortunatly the student had replied to the
> } list and it got sent to hundereds of his classmates.
> } I can't allow it to remain in the archives.
>
> Too late now.  You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
>
> And the kid has learned a painful lesson.  Hopefully he will be more
> careful in the future.
>
> Other posts to the list gave the URL to the Lsoft FAQ telling how to do
> it if you must, but I stand by my earlier opinion.  Feel free to
> disagree.

Archives of discussion lists should not be edited to appease subscribers who
knowingly post in haste, then repent at leisure, however, the few facts we have
been given suggest this might be a case of a subscriber who has been victimized
by poor judgment on the part of the list owner.

I suspect the message was posted to a list which is intended for use as an
announcement list to distribute administrative information to students. If
that is the case, the list should be configured with 'Send= Editor,Confirm'
and 'Reply-To= Sender'. Apparently, however, it is configured with
'Send= Private' and 'Reply-To= List'.

It seems inherently unfair to advise the student that his family's private
financial information must remain available to all present and future
subscribers of the list simply because the list owner made inappropriate
choices in the list configuration. More importantly, given the nature of the
posting, its presence in the list archives could make the school liable for
violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

--
Paul Russell
Senior Systems Administrator
OIT Messaging Services Team
University of Notre Dame